I'm reading on the DAZ forum so I may have misread, but it reads like if you want autofit to workin the release version of C8.5 you have to have CMS running?

Wish I could double check this stuff, I did it all the time when I was on the DAZ forum. But I do know you didn't need CMS running for autofit to work in the the beta.

"Okay, I had started a thread a while back regarding C8.5 and CMS issues.  That thread was about various poses that did NOT work UN LESS the CMS was running."

"I have just tested the Auto Fit.  With CMS running – the choices for garment type DO appear.  WITOUT the CMS running, the choices for garment type do NOT appear." kakman

Now tell me again how DAZ isn't forcing people in to useing CMS and DIM. Is it actually possable to download and install C8.5 with out DIM?

I find it highly suspicious that we didn't need CMS or DIM for the beta but aparently you do for the release version. It really looks like DAZ is going to take that next step so you wont actually be able to use DAZ content or apps with out having DIM and CMS installed and running. 

The more I read about what DAZ screwed up between the beta and the release of C8.5 the happier I am I didn't buy in to it. It's not like DAZ will fix any of it before C9. If then.

I looked into buying C8.5, but found that to take advantage of it, and enjoy my time, I would have to upgrade my computer.

In the balance, I decided I don't need anything so buggy for what I do: hobby, little bits of art. Some of the new features would be nice, but aren't actually necessary to justify the $.

What is CMS and DIM?

pappy

DAZ's latest tether you to DAZ plan.

Content Management System. If you have a well organized runtime/s, you don't need it; or at least didn't need it. Now it looks like if you want to use autofit or genesis poses in C8.5 you will need this bit of DRM running. It was not necessary in the betas. It's one of those things that install with Studio; whether you want it or not, that I usually immedietly uninstall.

Download Install Manager. DAZ's way of making something that should be easy as complex as possable. Installing content to a runtime or even what ever DAZ may be calling the Studio content folder this week; where ever it may be, should be as easy as unzip, cut, paste, done. Now DIM will download and install your content where you want it; if you have a gaurdian angle on the ball. All it has really accomplished is turning content installtion in to some Rube Goldberg operation.

I expect soon enough you wont be able to download and install any DAZ content with out it. I mean I am quite surprised DAZ is offering content in zips now. One of the best things DAZ has done for content in ages. But how long will that last? And will DAZ ever update any older content to it. Anything I bought before the mil4 figures still comes in those crap DAZ installers.

But I will admit DIM is named quite well, it is.

You can see the results of my tests in the thread I posted at DAZ.

In short, both CMS and DAZ Studio are needed for the projection templates to show up in Carrara, but autofit does work without them and in fact the templates seem to do more harm than good with most of the items I tested.

This was a change DAZ made after the last beta release. So far it looks like the last beta build worked better then the release.

My new prediction is DAZ will change ownership some time next year. I just don't see how DAZ can stay afloat with the way they have been consistently screwing things up for the past 2 years. But I don't know, DAZ seems to have a quite loyal group of followers.

cult noun, often attributive ˈkəlt: a small religious group that is not part of a larger and more accepted religion and that has beliefs regarded by many people as extreme or dangerous

: a situation in which people admire and care about something or someone very much or too much

: a small group of very devoted supporters or fans.

fa·nat·ic adjective fə-ˈna-tik

:  marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion.

Quote - What is CMS and DIM?

pappy

Evil.

Stan got it right. CMS is one of the 'phone home' sort of apps. It is supposed to help keep your content and DAZ software up to date. Sometimes it works and some times it doesn't. That and the phone home aspect of it is enough to keep me miles away from it.

DIM is DAZ's answer to the 'complicated' task of installing their content. As Stan said, it goes a long way in complicating a very simple task. Even if you do jump through the right hoops, there is no guarantee it will work as expected for you. DIM is another bit of DAZ kit that I stay far away from.

Quote - > Quote - What is CMS and DIM?

pappy

Evil. Stan got it right. CMS is one of the 'phone home' sort of apps. It is supposed to help keep your content and DAZ software up to date. Sometimes it works and some times it doesn't. That and the phone home aspect of it is enough to keep me miles away from it.

DIM is DAZ's answer to the 'complicated' task of installing their content. As Stan said, it goes a long way in complicating a very simple task. Even if you do jump through the right hoops, there is no guarantee it will work as expected for you. DIM is another bit of DAZ kit that I stay far away from.

You've got that right Books!

I knew CMS was trouble when they first announced it in the forums. Even got a few posts deleted when I warned against "phone home" aspect. I heard it works, but not always like you want it to.

DIM is another one I saw trouble coming from. I wasn't a big fan of zips, because I liked the way the old installers worked, but since people kept having trouble with the BitRock installers, I really didn't mind the change, UNTIL I found out the zips don't have ReadMe files. You have to be connected to the Internet to read those. My work computer isn't connected to the web.

Daz told me DIM would solve our problems. If that's the case, why all the threads saying "where are my_______________"?

DIM & CMS are the evil twins.

Quote - I'm reading on the DAZ forum so I may have misread, but it reads like if you want autofit to workin the release version of C8.5 you have to have CMS running? I find it highly suspicious that we didn't need CMS or DIM for the beta but aparently you do for the release version. It really looks like DAZ is going to take that next step so you wont actually be able to use DAZ content or apps with out having DIM and CMS installed and running. 

The more I read about what DAZ screwed up between the beta and the release of C8.5 the happier I am I didn't buy in to it. It's not like DAZ will fix any of it before C9. If then.

Why the hell SHOULD we have CMS or DIM running anyway? What do they have to do with anything?

You're right, it looks like a power grab from DAZ.

Daz, just give us software that works. We'll manage our own software installing and all that. Take that junk OUT of C9.

P.S. If Daz wants to give us something, why not make the runtime searchable like it is in DS?

Thanks for your answers to "What is DIM and CMS".  

I haven't had time to get into 8.5 yet but when I do, any surprises that I may encounter will probably be related to this and won't be a mystery.

True. Now I have yet to receave conformation if DIM is necesary to install C8.5. But the way the DAZ forum reads everyone has used it. If that is the case, that is yet another reason not to buy C8.5.

But in the beta I never used nor needed DIM or CMS. DAZ did something to C8.5 for the release.

Once you get past that, the big issues with C8.5 are the main new features, genesis compatability and autofit. Which work ok at best, certainly not well enough to justafy the price tag though. And not near as well as in Studio; where it's free.

CMS scans your content library; but which one where? So it knows everything in your content library, including any pirated content. It's easy enough to phone home to check your purcheses against what is in your library. And if there is a discrepency I am sure someone at DAZ is notified.

But even looking at it from a practical stand point, doing what it is suposedly designed to do, it is still useless to me. 90-95% of my content would never be listed in it.

Now DIM installs to yet a different studio content folder, someplace else; not at all confusing. Suposedly part of DIM; or is it CMS, is to keep track of any content that gets updated. We'll disregard the absurd notion of DAZ updating content, and ask why we need an app for that? Wouldn't it be better for everyone if we just had a "recently updated" sorting option on our product library page? Then we would just need like a red dot to tell us we have downloaded it since the update. No muss, no fuss, no intrusive app trying to tell me where to install my content.

I mean I am already hacked off DAZ is forcing us in to that cluster F Studio content folder, do they have to add the insult of DIM after the injury of CMS?

Of coarse my opinoin the reason the studio content folder is such a cluster F is puposly to confuse people and discourage them from doing anything in the content folder. At one time, and I have no clue how it ended up this way, I had aniblocks in 4 different palces in my studio content folder and all 4 were listed in Studio.

I'm still looking for a content folder file struckture map, I never found one because I am of the opinon even DAZ isn't sure what goes where. That is why I like the Poser runtime, a place for everything and everything in it's place.

I am a some what of intelegent person, I may be a bit thick but I am not stupid. I do not need help downloading, I do not need help installing, and I do not need help sorting my content. So please quit trying to shuve DIM and CMS down my throat. The more necessary DAZ makes them the less likely I am to shop there. Doesn't matter how nice the dress is if it is chained to the rack and has a GPS tracker on it.

 And yes, the black box is why I will never buy a new car.

Quote - Daz told me DIM would solve our problems. If that's the case, why all the threads saying "where are my_______________"?

Oh, yeah. I've read through some of those. I will never go through DIM for anything. Once again a user (Dartenback, I think) had to come up with how to get it to work for the rest of us and even then it doesn't work all the time. And you still end up with, 'where's my stuff' complaints.

It used to be so simple, although tediuos, to install stuff from DAZ. Now, look at it. Here's DAZ making things as complicated as possible to do a simple task.

I now buy 99% of my content here or from RDNA. They have zips. No muss, no fuss. And both places have a way for you to check if something you own has been updated. They actually send emails to let you know when a file has been updated. I like that.

I'm finding that the 3D world is much less complicated outside of the walls of DAZ. Who knew?

Quote - I'm finding that the 3D world is much less complicated outside of the walls of DAZ. Who knew?

Wow, there is a person dealing with a big clusterfu@k with DIM...

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/29303/

How can Daz make something so simple so hard?

Holy Cats! I thought it would be great when DAZ finally went to zipped files instead of the old installer thing. Too bad DAZ had to reinvent the wheel, again. 'Let's not make our zips like everybody else. Let's do it our way and make it as complicated as we can.'

I think it was Scotty (Star Trek) who said something like: 'The more they complicate the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.'

DAZ is getting very good at stopping up the drain.

Not sure what issues they may be having with zip. Are they on a mac or something? I work with zips all the time. Everything I download from DAZ is in zip.

I'm just not sure how someone can have issues with something that is as simple as unzip, open folder, check content, cut and paste. The problem is extrating to. Most zips aren't set to extract straight to your content folder or runtime. Extracting to Studios content folder from a DAZ zip means imbeading a content folder in a content folder since the zips top folder is a "content" folder. If you are just going to extract to, and not checking your content, you would extract to the "my documents/ DAZ 3D" folder. But then you would just end up with a "content" folder next to your "my library" folder, because DAZ doesn't pack zips in a "my library" folder

Confused yet? If not daz isn't doing it's job.

Thing is are you extracting to "content", "my library", or the latest "my daz 3d libaray". Unless DAZ has arbatraraly changed it's name yet again. That is why I'd rather unzip or extract to a dummy folder. That way you can move the contents of the "content" folder to what ever your active content folder's name is. Most of the time all I cut and paste is the runtime from the content folder to the proper figure's runtime. Genesis and optitex clothing being the only exceptions. For those I cut the contents; all of them, out of the content folder from the unzip and drop them in "my library". 

I can only see one reason for DAZ to play this content folder name game, to confuse customers and put them off trying to install content for themselves. Why else would the top folder in a DAZ zip have a different name then what the content folder has been called since Studio 4's release. The "content" folder went to "my libaray" with the release of Studio4 and before DAZ started putting content in zips. Yet DAZ still zips up content with a "content" top folder.

And DIM changes this yet again. DIM installs content to a "my DAZ 3D libaray". Yes, you may have gigs of Studio content in your libarary, but that isn't where DIM installs to. DIM creates yet another content folder that it installs to. So it is quite possable to have a "content" folder, a "my library" folder and a "my daz3d library" folder all in your "my documents/DAZ 3D" folder. But then since I don't use DIM this "my daz 3d library" folder may be someplace other then your daz 3d folder. The thing with DIM is by the time you have it set up to download and install to the right folder, I've downloaded, unziped it, and installed; to the right folder.

Confused yet?

Sounds like the script to a REALLY bad movie.

Why can RDNA, Rendo and everybody else (including independent vendors) create zip files that work as expected? Like content zip files have always worked since I've been playing at this hobby (7+ years now). I have no problem installing zips from them.

I think Stan is right and DAZ is trying to make installing content so complicated and confusing that no newbie would dare buy content from another store because they feel like they wouldn't be able to install it. Bad DAZ.

This shouldn't be news to anyone that was reading the forum here a couple of years ago when this info came out. I had a long heated debate going on with a DAZ rep about it. And was repeatedly assured at the time that what DAZ is doing now, wouldn't happen.

Sort of like putting a chain on the back of your truck, but you wont be towing anything. So why is the chain back there?

If DAZ doesn't intend to force people in to using CMS and DIM, why is it I can't download C8.5 and it's free content with out DIM? And why can't I use genesis in carrara with out having CMS installed and running? {which was not an issue in the beta} And if this is a bug why can't we get a fix in a reasonable amount of time? It's my understanding, and I could very well be wrong, but DAZ is done with C8.5. The wont be a C8.5.1 with fixes for anything.

Thing is in 2 years of using the beta I never needed DIM or CMS for anything. But for the release it seems almost manditory.

What's up with that?

OK, I somehow missed this. You NEED to use DIM to download Carrara 8.5 and its content? For real?

I'm thinking Blender is starting to look pretty along about now.

And I'm with you Stan. I don't forsee a fix update for 8.5. C9 is supposedly just around the corner, so why would they bother anyway.

DAZ assurances are fast becoming just wind blowing in their own sales (sails).

I don't know for sure about needing DIM to download and install. That just sounds way wrong. No one has said other wise, but maybe it's because no one here has bought and installed C8.5.

Ya, DAZ has pretty well blown their credability, so I can't go by anything they say. And probably why nothing has been said about C9. If you can't keep promises, don't make them.

Quote - I don't know for sure about needing DIM to download and install. That just sounds way wrong. No one has said other wise, but maybe it's because no one here has bought and installed C8.5.

Ya, DAZ has pretty well blown their credability, so I can't go by anything they say. And probably why nothing has been said about C9. If you can't keep promises, don't make them.

I have purchased 8.5 Pro.  I am able to download the program and content manually, or by using DIM.  Both options are available.  When I go to my product library, there is a Manual download button that I can right click on and do a file save as.

As to the quality of the zip files, I had a failure of my content hard drive and had to redownload most of my purchases from DAZ, Renderosity, and RDNA.  While most files had the correct paths setup, content from all the stores had differences in the directory structures in the zips.  Some files would have the runtime structure, some would have the directories below the runtime, but not include the runtime.  Some would have the vendor name then runtime. 

ncamp

When I first saw this new download system, I assumed it was a new effort at security, to be able to track who downloads what files and from whom.

The instant unusual files appear, with odd unnecessary file structures and a library that phones home.... well, all vendors in the 3D community know that non-paying downloaders are a problem and I don't see DAZ lowering its security by using simple zip files.

I have always manually placed content, due to having my own library structure. I found the new DAZ system too disconcerting to bother with and have essentially given up on them.

Thanks ncamp, nice to know.

I work in runtimes, always have. Nice, fairly neat, no real guessing what goes where. The studio content folder has always befutled me. Doesn't seem like there is a lot of ryme nor reason. Folders just seem to wind up anywhere.

The biggest reason to use a dummy folder is to check the zip file structure, and to make sure things are right, like the textures are there, or folders have the right spelling. Thing is, setting up DIM is more complex then manually installing content.

DIM is the leash and CMS is the collar that ties you to DAZ.